1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads/AI Slop
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
I don't know how relevant this is now, but here's a link to another post where I expressed my thoughts on what kind of pitfalls you might most likely face -- https://lemmy.world/post/36867409
By the way, what is this phenomenon on Lemmy? Let's say people are reluctant to read and comment on old posts published just a couple of days or a week ago, but with new ones, it's a completely different story. What kind of psychology is this? Or it seemed to me?
I'm not sure what your meme is saying. Is the implication that if there is UBI, then nobody will work anymore? I might be misunderstanding
people see newer posts in their feeds so they get more attention. Has nothing to do with reluctance
I don't comment on old posts to avoid necroin' xD Old habit from forums and such.
I always hate when I'm reading an old thread, someone comments with a great point, and then someone else starts an argument about necroing.
Gonna be honest, not like I understand it really. I mean, it may be bothersome to get pinged on something you commented 3 days earlier - people move on from such things quite quickly...but I believe it's just internet culture rn. Like memes getting old quickly etc.
Yes, I asked a stupid question.
Funny how UBI is typically considered a left-wing policy in the US, yet the only place in the country that actually has a UBI is traditionally considered pretty conservative.
Alaska has a thing called the Alaska Permanent Fund which was funded with an initial investment of oil and mining revenue. It pays out around $100 a month which is not really something to live on but definitely helps for struggling Alaskans.
I think a viable model for UBIs on a national scale would probably involve something similar. Perhaps a one-shot tax on the mega-rich to get the initial funding and then it's used to run a state-owned investment portfolio which invests in various sectors of the economy and then pays out the profits to the citizens.
Organized (left or right) politics don't support UBI because UBI redistributes power, and a power concentrating answer to any oppression complaint is to switch the balance of supremacism. Neocon/Zionist first rule in USA needs you to be miserable to be distracted from war and Israel budgets by gaslighting. CIA determined rule in other democracies is to make you miserable and destabilized, so that your puppets can give more tribute to US and its corporate champions.
As specific examples, leftist EU parties are still pro Trump/NATO and the collapsing austerity requirements of 5% of GDP for US weapons. In NY State, a DEM governor proposal to offer universal healthcare (same general justification as UBI) was rejected by union leaders because healthcare misery is a union recruiting/power imbalance.
Hate, misery, and crime are features that right wing needs for fascism, but left politicians can do quite well as controlled opposition, and get their share of oligarchy trickle down. Fighting the right on bandaid programs to create a new/bigger hierarchy, rewarding left supporters, is reward for fighting political war on left's side.
Just a little clarification on the Alaspa PFD (Permanent Fund Dividend), it's not paid monthly, but rather annually, and the amount it pays out changes from year to year depending on oil revenue for that year, which is where the fund comes from in the first place. This year it's only $1000. For an idea of amounts, in 2020 it was only $992 (Covid just ruined everything everywhere) while in 2022 it was as high as $3,284.
It is still basically UBI though, even if the amount per year isn't even enough to entirely offset the added expense of living in Alaska.
I said in a comment "hey why not universal healthcare and also ubi" and this nutcase yelled at me for over a week about it. I wasn't going to bother with defending the idea since I was just asking "why not" and they were calling me lazy, entitled, and stupid.
Well, these are tense times, so people can be extremely aggressive, but if a collapse happens... Oh, people would become barbarians.
There are some legit criticisms from the left on UBI, it's myopic focus on consumption, the possibility of it being eaten away due to inflation it causes and becoming a gift to landlords etc. I don't think "the government will use it to control us" is a good one as that can be said about any social service the government provides. Should we not have universal Healthcare because if a fascist takes over he can kick you off the roles and you'll die from a preventable disease?
Filling everyone's basic needs will be a vast social undertaking that will require a lot of organization, just because someone might take over that organization and wield it for power doesn't mean we shouldn't make it, it just means we have to keep careful watch over it when we do.
I think it’s still worth implementing UBI, most of the fears are something that can be tackled independently.
For instance, the why not have the government buy up most of the private apartments and turn them into public housing? Or at the least set rate increase limits on rent.
I don’t believe most things would face much noticeable inflation if a UBI were to be implemented, aside from luxury/high quality goods. A little inflation is baked into our economy anyway, as a little inflation is a good thing to prevent deflation.
I agree with you, people fear mongering about UBI being used to control people, when bosses could do that currently with a paycheck. UBI usually means no strings attached, although I’m sure there could be other incentive programs out there on top of UBI to reward people.
If we really want UBI to be less likely to be taken over by bad actors, I feel it makes sense to have each state implementing their own UBI programs. It would be great if this was a federal program that helped everyone, but even getting it passed federally is looking like an uphill climb. It makes way more sense to pass UBI in progressive states, and try to sell purple and red states on the idea as well.
I mean, Alaska has a Basic Income at the least, so in theory we already see one state mildly seeing the benefit of a Universal Basic Income.
I don’t think “the government will use it to control us” is a good one as that can be said about any social service the government provides.
It's backwards, as the method of social control by the state is national security. And we've never seen so-called libertarian conservatives flinch at inflating the size of the Pentagon or the FBI or ICE.
The real "danger" of Social Security / Medicare / HUD is that a state official might provide a benefit that endears the public to an institution of the state at the expense of the free market. In effect, the "control" is the result of popular support for a program. And the "victims" are people who want the program expanded.
A wise answer... But times are tense now, and who knows what surprises await us next. By the way, I recommend looking into what a CBDC is, in my opinion, they will also try to introduce this after digital IDs..
By the way, what is this phenomenon on Lemmy? Let’s say people are reluctant to read and comment on old posts published just a couple of days or a week ago, but with new ones, it’s a completely different story. What kind of psychology is this? Or it seemed to me?
In the default lemmy feed (in browser view at least), posts only show if they're younger than 3 days (72 hours). So older posts typically get ignored, so nobody wants to comment there because nobody will read these comments anyways.
Broadly speaking, UBI is a good idea for a bad system.
Public housing, public health care, public grocery stores, public transit, and public education are a good idea for a better system.
The government giving you a fixed stipend to play your hand at the free market carries a whole host of secondary challenges, particularly as we enter a 70s-era inflationary spiral. The private sector having an incentive to create tiered levels of service to capture UBI money while delivering the smallest possible economic benefit to the consumer is a huge problem in the existing market.
The fundamental problem with UBI is that landlords will still evict your ass as soon as they find a way to squeeze more rent out of a unit. You have money, but you don't have any kind of civil right to housing.
As an initial stopgap on the way to a socialist economic model, its got merit. But as a panacea, it - much like minimum wage and child tax credits and other forms of government mandated economic floors - falls depressingly short of the end goal.
The government really needs to either implement rent controls or buy up many of the private apartments to turn into public housing. It really doesn’t make a ton of sense for the product being leased for profit to be … property? In what world does it make sense for where you live to be a for-profit venture for someone else? Nah, the government could own it and rent out units at more reasonable rates/subsidizing the costs.
UBI is still great imo, but it’s not the end step like you said. We should have Universal Healthcare and public transit as well. I feel that UBI could pay for groceries, but grocery stores/food producers should have more regulations on the fillers and junk they put into these ‘food’ items they sell. I believe education K thru College should be free. It just makes sense for society to subsidize the education costs for the people that will help create value to our economy through their higher education.
I think The Expanse had a decent “UBI” model, Basic
It covers just enough food-like substance with the correct macros for a human, everyone had an apartment and access to the internet and tv channels. I think healthcare was included to a point. That’s it. You could survive on it without much suffering.
If you wanted more, you had to go to school and work.
It's been a while, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but wasn't a big part of that universe the droves of people on Earth that couldn't afford to survive or house themselves even with UBI?